The Higher Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) arrested the former first deputy mayor of Odesa. He is suspected of creating a criminal organization that controlled officials of the Odesa City Council.
This was reported by the press service of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office.
Earlier, in addition to the first deputy, suspicion was handed over to the chief of staff of the executive committee of the Odesa City Council and the deputy mayor.
All three are involved in the case of the creation of a criminal organization that controlled almost all issues of the cityʼs economic life (interaction with developers, purchases, activities of utility companies).
Thus, the head of the city councilʼs staff received $15 000 per month from the organizers of the scheme for the fact that the land commission made decisions on allocating land for construction to the right people, as well as on making changes to the city budget. In total, from November 2021 to August 2022, he received bribes in the amount of 2.4 million hryvnias.
From March to July 2022, the first deputy and deputy mayor of Odesa received 900 and 300 thousand hryvnias, respectively, from the organizers of the scheme. The first deputy mayor of Odesa was responsible for the bills related to the repair of roads in the city: he froze payments so that contractors would pay bribes to continue the work. The official also voted for the establishment of such tariffs for handling solid household waste in Odesa, which corresponded to the interests of the criminal organization.
The law enforcement officers do not name the people involved, but, according to the media, itʼs about the first deputy mayor Mykhailo Kuchuk, the chief of staff of the executive committee Oleh Bryndak and the deputy mayor Svitlana Bedreha.
- Odesa businessmen Borys Kaufman and Oleksandr Hranovskyi are named as one of the organizers of the scheme. Kaufman was released from the pretrial detention center on bail.